Electoral College Origins in the United States

Electoral College: History of the Electoral College: Origins

Introduction to Electoral College Origins

One thing is clear about the political theory underpinning the electoral college: The framers of the Constitution could not agree on one. From the outset, the framers were uncertain about how the president should be chosen. Meeting in the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1787, the framers originally decided to have Congress choose the president, and that there should be no popular vote to elect the president. Then the Constitutional Convention decided that the president should be chosen by electors. Later consideration restored the choice to Congress. Toward the close of the convention, a committee came up with the main outlines of the procedure used to this day, selection by electors.

The framers’ uncertainty was generated by disagreement over the role of the people, the Congress, and the states in the political process. Many delegates to the convention, including Virginia’s James Madison, favored popular election of the president. But others, such as Massachusetts’s Elbridge Gerry, feared the “ignorance of the people.” Virginia’s George Mason thought that to refer the choice of president to the people would be to “refer a trial of colors to a blind man.” These doubts about the people’s ability to choose a president led to misgivings about the competence of the proposed electoral college. Some delegates therefore preferred that Congress select the president. South Carolina’s Charles Pinckney argued that because members of Congress would be “immediately interested in the laws made by themselves,” they would be likely to select a “fit man to carry them properly into execution.” Connecticut’s Roger Sherman also favored letting Congress choose so as to make the president “absolutely dependent on that body.”

But most of the delegates in Philadelphia opposed congressional selection. Gerry argued that there would be “constant intrigue kept up for the appointment.” Pennsylvania’s Robert Morris argued that the president should not be the “mere creature of the Legislature.” Madison, too, believed that congressional selection would leave the chief executive “under the influence of an improper obligation” to the Congress. Unable to agree on either selection by Congress or selection by the people, some other alternative was required. The framers thus settled on the electoral college.

This choice represented a compromise. The losers-at least in the first stage of the new electoral structure-were the proponents of popular sovereignty (the doctrine that the people determine directly how they are ruled and that government is subject to the will of the people). Electors would be chosen by the state legislatures with no reference to popular preference. If the electoral college were to deadlock, however, the election would be decided by the House of Representatives. There, state sovereignty would prevail, because each state delegation would have one vote, regardless of the size of the state’s population.

One other compromise was reached that bore upon the size of a state’s number of electors-the infamous “three-fifths” clause. A slave, it was agreed, was to count as three-fifths of a person for purposes of determining a state’s population, and thus the number of its representatives in Congress and the number of its electors to the electoral college.” (1)

Resources

Notes and References

• Information about Electoral College Origins in the Encarta Online Encyclopedia

Guide to Electoral College Origins

In this Section

Voting Rights, Voter Participation, Election Redistricting, Electoral College (including Electoral College Selection, Counting the Votes, Electoral College Origins, Electoral College First Years, Electoral College History and the 12th Amendment, Disputed Elections of 1824 and 1876, Electoral College and the Influence of Political Parties, Winner-Take-All System, Debate Over the Electoral College and Electoral College Reform), Electorate Age and Electorate Constitutional Provisions.